Doctoral Dissertation Research: Integration of Quantitative and Documentary Methodologies in the Analysis of a Segmentally-Rich Language

我们对人类语言工作原理的大部分了解都是基于少数几种经过充分研究的语言，主要来自西方工业化国家。与此同时，世界上7,000种语言中有近一半正面临消失的威胁，这给语言学带来了一个紧迫的挑战，即在社区仍在使用这些语言的同时，记录研究不足的语言。本论文项目解决这些问题，不仅通过记录一个研究不足，分段丰富的语言，但通过开创性的适应实验方法的实地考察设置，提供丰富的，定量的数据类型通常只适用于良好的研究语言。研究人员将对Tsova-Tush的语音系统和语法进行首次定量调查，Tsova-Tush是一种在格鲁吉亚使用的极度濒危的东北高加索语言。这一语系和地区在语言学中的代表性都很低，这意味着这种语言的定量数据对于帮助增加语言科学可用数据库的多样性特别有价值。此外，它在格鲁吉亚的位置是一个理想的实地考察设置为适应濒危语言的实验方法：Tsova-Tush是在一个农村，农业村庄与其他实地考察地点的许多挑战，但有足够的可靠的交通和电信接入，使实验方法的应用和故障排除可行。最后，文档将提供有关段复杂语言的有价值的数据，这些数据将进一步加深我们对人类语言复杂性的认知需求的理解。更广泛的影响包括一个公共的录音和录音资料库，博士生的培训，并促进少数民族语言群体获得语言资源，以提高科学的理解。定量研究在论文中集中在三个语言问题：长元音和辅音的地位，指示词和代词（索引）的语法性，以及建议的写作系统的可读性。有人认为，措瓦-图什语既有普通的辅音，也有“密集的”辅音，还有短元音、长元音和“超长的”元音，但语言学家缺乏语音细节来确定这个复杂语音系统的确切属性。通过对多个说话者的详细声学研究，本项目将描述区分这些辅音和元音的持续时间特性。此外，Tsova-Tush有一个复杂的索引系统，区分三个指示距离（“这里”/“那里”/“在那里”），其语法用途知之甚少。在这个项目中，将进行一个实验，在这个实验中，说话人将被要求判断的语法性的句子与索引在各种各样的上下文，从而建立参数的索引转移。最后，根据这些研究的结果，研究人员将测试拟议的Tsova-Tush书写系统的可读性，并为演讲者提供语言上合理的建议，以开发语言的书面材料。本论文对定量研究在文献研究中的成功和挑战的描述将有助于改进文献语言学和实验语言学的方法。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持的。

Much of what we know about how human languages work is based on only a handful of well-studied languages, chiefly from Western, industrialized countries. Meanwhile, nearly half of the world's 7,000 languages are under threat of disappearance, presenting linguistics with the urgent challenge of documenting under-studied languages while communities still use them. This dissertation project addresses these issues not only by documenting an under-studied, segmentally-rich language, but through groundbreaking adaptation of experimental methods to a fieldwork setting to provide rich, quantitative data of the type normally only available for well-studied languages. The researchers will conduct the first quantitatively-driven investigations of the sound system and grammar of Tsova-Tush, a critically endangered Northeast Caucasian language spoken in Georgia. This language family and region are both dramatically underrepresented in linguistics, meaning that quantitative data from this language are particularly valuable for helping to increase the diversity of the database available to linguistic science. Further, its location in Georgia is an ideal fieldwork setting for adapting experimental methods for an endangered language: Tsova-Tush is spoken in a rural, agricultural village with many of the challenges of other fieldwork sites, but with reliable enough access to transit and telecommunications to make the application and troubleshooting of experimental methods feasible. Finally, the documentation will provide valuable data about a segmentally complex language that will further our understanding of the cognitive demands of human language complexity in general. Broader impacts include a public repository of recordings and transcriptions, the training of a doctoral student, and facilitating access to linguistic resources for a minority language group to enhance scientific understanding.The quantitative studies in the dissertation focus on three linguistic questions: the status of long vowels and consonants, the grammaticality of demonstratives and pronouns (indexicals), and the readability of a proposed writing system. It has been suggested that Tsova-Tush has both plain and "intensive" consonants, as well as short, long, and "hyperlong" vowels, but linguists lack the phonetic details to establish the exact properties of this complicated sound system. Through a detailed acoustic study with multiple speakers, this project will describe the durational properties that distinguish these consonants and vowels. Further, Tsova-Tush has a complex system of indexicals, distinguishing three deictic distances ('here'/'there'/'over there'), whose grammatical uses are poorly understood. In this project, an experiment will be conducted, in which speakers will be asked to judge the grammaticality of sentences with indexicals in a wide variety of contexts, thus establishing the parameters of indexical shift. Finally, based on the findings of these studies, the researchers will test the readability of a proposed Tsova-Tush writing system and provide speakers with linguistically sound recommendations for developing written materials in the language. The dissertation's description of the successes and challenges of the quantitative studies in a documentation scenario will help improve the methodologies of both documentary and experimental linguistics.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.